Horse Gait Terms in Turkic Languages of Siberia (Compared to Mongolic Languages)

Abstract

Purpose. Russian and foreign linguists studied the influence of Turkic languages on the grammatical and lexical composition of Mongolic languages. Material from monuments and modern living languages of Siberia shed light on the role of the early Turkic and Mongolic language in the development of the modern linguistic landscape of the region, specifying its place in the Altai linguistic family from a cultural perspective. Horse is a sacred animal for all Turkic and Mongolic speaking nomads that take an important place in their economy and culture, with all its characteristics being featured in the lexicon of the languages under comparison. Researchers also examined a wide range of Mongolian words reflecting various sex- and age-specific terms for livestock and its color as well as keeping and pasturing practices, pasture characteristics, livestock economy, etc. The lexicon characterizing horse movement in Turkic and Mongolic languages has not been the subject of comparative analysis in modern Turkic studies. Thus, the paper describes and analyzes the lexico-semantic group of words that represent the terms for the pattern of natural movement of horse in Turkic and Mongolic languages.Results. To achieve the research objectives we used the synchronous descriptive, comparative, contrastive-typological, and where possible comparative-historical methods. The study defined the structure and semantics of linguistic units, revealing considerably more similarities than differences in the plane of expression in both Turkic languages of Siberia and Mongolic layers of vocabulary.Conclusion. Yakut demonstrates both the Turkic and Mongolic layers, which is characteristic of all languages under comparison. Also, there are later borrowings from Buryat, e.g. the verbs denoting ‘amble’.